A child no more than two or three winters old bawled at the lip of the pit. It had straggly hair that might have been blond once, a face matted with filth, a dirty tunic, and nothing covering its feet. It also looked about to fall into the pit with the dead folk. She set down her buckets and hurried forward just as the child slipped and fell to its rump on the crumbling slope.
“Here, now,” she said, grabbing it by the arm and pulling it back. “Don’t fall in, child.” Looking around, she hailed one of the diggers. “Where’s the child’s kin?”
He pointed into the grave, where woman and infant lay bound together by shreds of old cloth, all that the folk in the camp could spare to make sure they weren’t separated in death. With a stab and a heave, he tossed another spadeful of earth onto the grave. A shower of dirt scattered across the waxy faces of mother and child.
“Isn’t there anyone here to look after it?”
“It was crying when we came to carry away the corpse,” he said, “and it’s crying still. Ach, child,” he added, “perhaps it was a blessing that the children of Gent escaped the city, but most of them are orphans now, as is this poor babe. Who’s to care for them when we can’t even care for our own?”
The child, safe away from the rim, had now fastened onto her thigh and it snuffled there, smearing her tunic with snot as it whimpered and coughed.
“Who, indeed?” asked Anna softly. With a finger she touched the Circle of Unity that hung at her chest. “Come, little one. What’s your name?”
The child didn’t seem to know its name, nor could it talk. She pried its arms off her leg and finally, with some coaxing, got the child to drag one of the empty buckets. In this way, with the baby toddling along beside her, they made it to the stream, where they waited in line to dip their wooden buckets into the water.
“Who’s this?” asked one of the older girls, indicating the child who stood fast at Anna’s heels like a starving dog. “I didn’t know you had a little brother.”
“I found him by the new grave.”
“Ach, indeed,” said an older boy. “That would be Widow Artilde’s older child.”
“Widow?” asked Anna. “But she was so young.” Then she realized how stupid the comment sounded as the older children snickered.
“Her husband was a militia man in the city. I suppose he died when the Eika came.”
“Then you know her?” Anna tried to draw the child out from behind her, but the child began to bawl again.
“She’s dead,” said the boy. “Had the baby, and they both of them caught sick and died.”
“Doesn’t anyone want this child?”
But having filled their buckets, the others were already walking away, hauling the precious water back to camp or to Steleshame. So she let the child follow her back to the shelter she and Matthias called home. Indeed, the child seemed unlikely to let her out of its sight.
“God forfend!” exclaimed Helvidius when she ushered the child into the shelter of the canvas awning. A fire burned brightly in a crude hearth built of stones, and the old poet sat on his stool watching over the pot in which they kept a constant hot stew made of anything edible they could scavenge. Today it smelled of mushroom and onion, flavored with the picked-over bones of a goose. The remains of yesterday’s acorn gruel sat in their one bowl next to the fire. Anna handed spoon and bowl to the child. The spoon dropped unregarded from its hand and it used its dirty fingers to shovel down the lukewarm gruel.
“What’s this creature?” demanded Helvidius.
“One more helpless than you!” Anna had taken the buckets of water around to the tanners in exchange for scraps of leather. “Can you help me make it something to wear on its feet?”
“You’re not taking this brat in, are you? There’s scarcely room for the three of us.”
But Anna only laughed. The old poet was always grumpy, but she didn’t fear him. “I’ll let him sleep curled at your feet. It’ll be like having a dog.”
He grunted. The child had licked the bowl clean and now began to snivel again. “Dogs don’t whine so,” he said. “Does it have a name?”
“Its mother’s dead, and no one else claimed it. You watch over it while I go haul more water.”
She made four more trips down to the stream. At this time of year, with the winter slaughter underway, the tannery was busy with many new hides, so Matthias had seen to it that she could take his place hauling water and ash for the tanning pits or collecting bark from the forest. He had taken on more skilled work scraping or finishing skins which had cured over summer and autumn. She didn’t mind the work. The activity kept her warm and gave them a certain security that many of the other refugees, dependent on what they could scavenge from the forest or on Mistress Gisela’s charity, did not have.